


I Do

by liberosis32



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Eavesdropping, Love Confessions, M/M, POV Dean, Shipper!Sam, Tags Are Hard, Time Travel Repercussions, past!cas - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 04:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9583601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liberosis32/pseuds/liberosis32
Summary: In the aftermath of time-travel-gone-awry, Castiel explains to his past-self why everything that's happened since meeting the Winchesters has been worth it, and Dean overhears.





	

Dean hadn’t meant to eavesdrop.

He’d just been on his way back to his room from the kitchen. He’d just meant to grab some water and go back to bed. Time travel always dehydrated him, and he’d spent the last… however long... getting zapped back and forth through the decades trying to hunt that pagan Greek dude Kronos. 

The “lord of time” had monologued some drama about how averting the Apocalypse had thrown off the space-time continuum, but whatever. It was done and dealt with now.

Except apparently it wasn’t.

“I still don’t understand how you let this happen,” came a quiet, muffled voice from Cas’s room. It was Cas’s voice… kind of. Just a little less gruff, and quite a bit higher.

Really, it was a twelve-year-old Jimmy Novak’s voice. The first time Dean had gotten blasted back in time during the hunt, he’d ended up in the mid-80s. He’d realized pretty fast that he’d need to find an entity that could time travel if he wanted to get back to the present, and eventually he’d resorted to kidnapping poor young Jimmy from Bible camp, so he could summon 80s-Cas into the younger model of his vessel. 

Dean had managed to convince what he’d semi-affectionately been referring to as Mini-Cas to take him back to the present by lying that he was under “Michael’s orders.” Of course, once they got there, Mini-Cas had quickly discovered a multitude of subjectively unpleasant truths: not only had he fallen and turned human, but he’d also fucked up the Apocalypse. Modern Cas had, of course, been grumpy as hell with Dean throughout the rest of the hunt, and Dean couldn’t really blame him: Mini-Cas had to let his mojo recharge before he could zap back to the 80s, so Cas had basically spent the day babysitting a younger, extremely critical version of himself. 

It would’ve been laughable, except for how much of an unexpected guilt trip the whole experience had heaped onto Dean. Which, Dean had a feeling, was only going to be made worse by whatever Cas and Mini-Cas were talking about on the other side of the door…

“Honestly, sometimes I’m not entirely sure myself,” normal Cas answered.

“That doesn’t help me to avert our course of action when I go back.”

A strange fear knotted in Dean’s chest. Avert their course of action? Did he mean keep Cas from falling? Dean put his hand on the doorknob, about to go in and protest, but thankfully Cas beat him to the punch. “You don’t want to change the way things have worked out.”

“As if I could trust you,” Mini-Cas sniped. “You’ve ruined everything. You’ve ruined us, you’ve ruined Heaven. The angels without their wings, Raphael and Michael both dead, along with countless others, God’s plan in shambles – “

“Humanity is worth – ”

“Humanity,” Mini-Cas sneered in young Jimmy’s mockery of adult Cas’s gruff voice. “Tell me, Castiel, what changes between my time in yours, that makes humanity suddenly look so appealing? It’s certainly fascinating, and beautiful in a clinical sort of way – as is all of God’s creation – but you would fall for it? What changes to make humanity worth that? Worth giving up everything?”

Cas stayed silent. Dean found himself frozen with his hand on the doorknob; the remnant of his half-aborted mission to barge in and set Mini-Cas straight about the merits of free will and friendship and family and all that jazz. He still didn’t open the door, though. For some reason, he found himself really wanting to hear Cas’s answer.

Maybe a part of him was hoping for absolution. Today had been a terrible reminder of how much he and Sam really had fucked up Cas’s life. Sure, they’d done it for good reasons, and Cas hadn’t made any choices outside of his own free will… but that didn’t make the mess any easier to bear, especially when it was all drudged up like this.

He really was going to be dealing with Apocalypse fallout until he died, wasn’t he?

Goddamn it. He should just keep going and lock himself back in his own room before he heard anymore. Before Cas could tell Mini-Cas how much he really did regret everything that had happened; the sort of confession Dean knew Cas would never say directly to him and Sam, because even wide-eyed, endearingly naive Castiel would know how much that would hurt. Christ, Dean really hadn’t meant to eavesdrop…

“We fall in love,” Cas said.

A beat passed. Dean didn’t breath. 

Mini-Cas scoffed again. “Love?”

“Love,” Cas repeated himself.

“God’s love is all any of us has ever needed. ‘Love’ for humanity cannot compare to – “

“No, it can’t,” Cas agreed, and Dean felt himself sink a little. Until Cas went on and said, “It’s – indescribably… more.”

There was another long silence. 

“Dean Winchester is Michael’s true vessel,” Mini-Cas said, almost like a warning.

“I know,” Cas said.

Another long silence.

“Does he love… us?” Mini-Cas asked. There was a shift in his voice here. A strange, tentative wistfulness that Dean couldn’t make two cents of, because he was still too busy trying to make sense of the whole, impossible, out of nowhere, we fall in love thing.

Cas wasn’t… there was no way Cas was talking about him.

Really, there was just no way.

Because – because – 

“I don’t think so,” Cas answered, sad but resigned, sending Dean spiraling from his already chaotic train of thought into a inexplicable, guilty despair…

“And yet we fall for him.”

“It’s still worth it,” Cas said, sounding more assured now, more assured than he had about anything so far. “Even if you had the power to change your – our – future… which is apparently more possible than either of us thought, before the Apocalypse… I promise, we will not want to.”

“But – “

“And believe me when I say, this isn’t a case of wanting something you know you shouldn’t, either. This is not a temptation, or a vice, that even while indulging you think to yourself, I shouldn’t be doing this.”

“I have no context for what that feels like.”

“I mean no offense, Cas, but you don’t have a context for what anything feels like.”

“My name is Castiel,” said Mini-Cas a little huffily.

“For now,” said Cas, and Dean could hear the smile in his voice.

The conversation sounded semi-over, and a sudden tingle of fear itched its way down Dean’s spine – the last thing he needed was for Cas or Mini-Cas to open the door for whatever reason and find him standing out here creeping.

He hadn’t meant for this to happen. He really hadn’t.

Silently, Dean toed his way backwards from the door, and headed the rest of the way down the hall towards his own room. He swallowed down the rest of his water and crawled back beneath his covers.

He didn’t sleep the entire rest of the night.

By the time morning rolled around, and Dean stumbled red-eyed and bleary-headed into the kitchen to drudge through the motions of making coffee, Mini-Cas was gone and Cas-Cas… my Cas, Dean thought, trying out the idea… was sitting at the table browsing through some old Enochian tome.

Cas didn’t really even acknowledge Dean had come in. Belatedly, as Dean filled the pot with water, he remembered that Cas was probably still pissed at him for bringing Mini-Cas into the mix yesterday in the first place.

Dean exhaled and set down the coffee pot. He rested his hands on the counter and lowered his head, back turned to Cas. Whether Cas was pissed off or not, Dean knew he needed to say this now, or else he was gonna lose his nerve.

“I do, Cas.”

“Hmm?” 

Dean didn’t turn around, but he didn’t think Cas had even looked up from his book. 

“Last night,” he pummeled ahead, awkwardly. “Uh, last night, I was up, and – look, I didn’t mean to, exactly, but I overheard you talking with Mini-Cas, and… I, uh… I just wanted you to know that, you’re wrong. Because – I do. Okay?”

Dean heard the chair scoot against the floor as Cas finally turned around to face him. “I need you to be more specific, Dean, I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

Oh, Christ. This was hard enough, dammit.

“I think I’m in love with you too, alright?” Dean snapped, finally whirling around.

At last, they were both facing each other.

With a dull, dawning horror, Dean realized the look on Cas’s face was more like a deer in the headlights facing down death than someone who’d just had their romantic feelings reciprocated. With a sinking feeling, Dean racked his memory of last night. Oh, God, had he misheard? Had – had –

“Oh, God,” said Dean, running a hand down his face and looking away. “You meant – yeah, okay, platonic. Brotherly.” 

He didn’t mean to say the word with so much disdain, because any other time, ‘like a brother’ was about the highest level of compliment in Dean’s book. Hell, he’d called Cas his brother a couple times before, too, even though the term had never exactly fit.

With a strange calm, Dean’s brain informed him that this was, in fact, the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to him.

Dean left the coffee fixings on the counter and tried to retreat into the hall with his flayed dignity… but of course Cas had to get up and block his path.

“Dean,” said Cas. “Stop.”

“Ah, Cas, c’mon, we really don’t have to talk about – “

“I don’t know what you think you heard last night,” said Cas, and, whoa, okay. He sounded mad for some reason. “But I do not need your pity.”

“Uh – “ Now Dean was embarrassed and confused. “What?”

“I don’t expect you to love me back. I would never ask that of you. And if you think I have fallen so far that I – that I’m so pathetic, that you would feel the need to pretend – “

And Dean got it.

“Whoa whoa whoa, Cas, hey,” he said, reaching out and gripping Cas’s shoulders. He didn’t think about it while he was doing it, but once they were there, the contact took over his brain a little. “I’m not pretending anything. I’m not kidding, or – or being sarcastic, or – look, just trust me, I’m being totally serious, okay?”

Cas narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Really.”

Dean got a wild idea, then. This was probably going to haunt him more than any damn ghost he’d ever faced, or would ever face, if he was misreading things again or screwed this up, but – well, they were already in position, and Dean had a point to prove – 

It was just a kiss.

The world didn’t accelerate its spin. Sparks didn’t fly. 

It was just a kiss. But it wasn’t awkward or anything, either. 

It was just a kiss. Just their lips touching… Cas’s parting for Dean’s… a strange, sudden heat rising up and filling out his chest, his heart accelerating, his hands shaking – 

Things long out of joint, suddenly clicking into place.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t just a kiss.

Maybe it was everything.

“Morning, guys,” said Sam, squeezing past Cas to get into the kitchen. Dean immediately pulled away, all of his momentarily forgotten embarrassment hitting him like a tsunami.

“Oh, God,” said Dean.

“Oh, please,” said Sam. He picked up where Dean had left off making the coffee. “Seriously, it’s about time. Speaking of, did Mini-Cas go home?”

Dean nodded mutely.

“Good.” Sam turned the coffee maker on and turned around to face him and Cas. Smiling, he said, “To be honest, I like present-day Cas a lot better.”

Cas smiled back a bit sheepishly. “So do I.”

Well, apparently we’re all having a moment, Dean thought. 

Vaguely irritated, but also feeling like everything inside him was friggen’ fluttering, he took Cas’s hand, and Cas twined their fingers together, and that was that.


End file.
